Like most monitors, the 22" Samsung 2243BW display comes with a little feature built into the control panel called MagicBright (other brands use different names to describe the same effect).
The tool has several presets for brightness/contrast/colour temperature, based on somewhat arbitrary usage scenarios like watching a movie, reading text or playing video games.
For example, when "text" is chosen the screen switches to a warmer image that
isn't too bright, and thus is easier on the eyes.
The OSD menu is neatly organized
so it's easy to find what you're looking for. The only
problem we encountered while navigating the Syncmaster 2243BW's OSD menu was the control panel keys. Without
any tactile flags to indicate the position of the up/down and menu/enter buttons we found
ourselves often pressing the wrong key, or nothing at all.
The Samsung Syncmaster 2243BW monitor was tested with
a fast paced FPS game and the results were satisfactory. The high
contrast ratio of 1000:1 resulted in good black backgrounds and
suitably bright graphics, just as things should be. The Syncmaster 2243BW's screen is rated at a quick 5ms
G-to-G pixel refresh rate, so rapid screen movements were ghost free. We did
notice a bit of light bleeding around the outer bezel of the screen, but it
wasn't excessive.
The dynamic
Magicbright setting can generate weird effects in gaming environments where the screen rapidly
changes from dark to highly contrast scenes. It's generally better to stick with a fixed
display regime.
LCD Screen Evaluation Notes
Test parameters: Mode - Custom, resolution 1680x1050 32 bit,
60Hz, 6500K, DVI connection.
For the evaluation
of the Samsung Syncmaster 2243BW's display quality, PCSTATS used a standard
Monitor Test application which outputs various test patterns, solid colours,
and different grey scales that enable subjective analysis. These include contrast,
colour luminance, brightness and Moire. Ghosting is subjectively
tested in a gaming environment.
Brightness and Contrast: The Samsung
Syncmaster 2243BW has a high contrast ratio which resulted in bright white test bars over
a suitably black background. From head on the transition white test
bars were distinguishable, but the shallow vertical viewing angle was noticeable if the
viewer sat too close to the screen.
Some light bleeding around the edge of the screen was noticeable, but none
around the high contrast black-to-white test images.
Colour Vibrancy: The white, red, green and blue test screens were equally bright
and vibrant. All test images were even across the entire screen. Colour saturation on the whole was
fine. No visible dull or broken pixels were detected. The 2243BW is a bit limited with respect to
the full colour gamut it can reproduce because the screen is based on TFT/TN LCD
panel technology. In some situations very subtle gray tones are washed out, or
appear yellowish.
Non-native Resolution:
The
native resolution of the Samsung 2243BW is 1680x1050. We tested several non-native resolutions and
found the image dithering /image scaling more than capable. Text remained legible and undistorted, edges were smooth and
not blurred.
Moire: I'm not
quite sure what the culprit was, but the Moire test patterns displayed very
slowly on the Samsung 2243BW monitor. In fact, the 2243BW
rendered them slow enough that you could see it going from left to right,
or top to bottom. PCSTATS has never encountered this type of
result before, so we're not sure
what to make
it. There were no noticeable background noise in the moire test patterns, at least.
Viewing Angles: If you view the 2243BW from too
close a distance the limited 170°/160° horizontal/vertical viewing angles begin
to affect the screen quality. In particular the 160° vertical viewing angle
caused us the most annoyance. The bottom Windows "start" bar
appeared either slightly yellow,
or the light gray was over contrasted and whiter than it ought to be.
Widescreen for High
Definition, is the Samsung 2243BW worth it?
A good rule of thumb to find
yourself an amazing LCD display is not to dwell too much on abstract numbers
like pixel refresh times or 1,000,000:1 contrast ratios. No, if you really
want to cut through all the marketing hype pay closer attention to the displays'
viewing angles. The specification is presented in terms of horizontal and
vertical degrees, with 178°/178° being the best, and values lower than 160°/160°
a clear indicator of an LCD screen to avoid.
High viewing angles tell you that a better quality LCD panel technology
is used (ie. S-PVA, or IPS), whereas low viewing angles indicate a more
mainstream LCD screen: TFT/TN. The 22" widescreen Samsung
Syncmaster 2243BW LCD display falls into the latter category, and so it is most
definitely oriented towards budget-minded and gaming crowds. The Samsung
2243BW retails for a very affordable $270 CDN, and while it has the screen real
estate every professional users wants, its limited viewing angles and
shallow colour gamut make it an unsuitable LCD monitor for professional tasks in
our opinion.
The 22"
Samsung 2243BW features fairly average 170°/160° viewing angles, a 1000:1
contrast ratio, and typical brightness value of 300cd/m2. These specs conspire
to make this widescreen 1680x1050 pixel panel a bit of a mixed
bag. The screen is rated for a 5ms pixel response time, but minor
light bleed through was visible around the bevel on an all black
test screen.
It's 22" 16:10 aspect ratio is ideal
for watching HD movies at full screen,
but shallow viewing angles mean you'll want to sit directly in front of this LCD
to get the best picture. Ultimately, we were left unsatisfied with
the picture on the Samsung 2243BW 22" widescreen display because of its
limited viewing angles. Given its very economical price tag of only $270 we
completely expected to love it... unfortunately cold hard reality sunk in the moment we
began putting it through an average day's work at PCSTATS.
If you're really strapped for cash but have to have a
22" widescreen to accommodate spreadsheets and other text-heavy work, the
Samsung 2243BW is okay, certainly better than a 19" screen built on the same
TFT/TN panel. If you've ever worked on a good 178°/178° 19" LCD screen and
are now searching for something bigger that won't break the bank, the 2243BW
will most definitely leave you thinking you sacrificed far too much in the
visual quality column for those three extra
horizontal inches.
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